Do not our great reformers use
This Sidrophel to forebode news;[1]
To write of victories next year,[2]
And castles taken, yet i' th' air?
Of battles fought at sea, and ships 175
Sunk, two years hence? the last eclipse?[3]
A total o'erthrow giv'n the king
In Cornwall, horse and foot, next spring?[4]
And has not he point-blank foretold
Whats'e'er the close committee would?[5] 180
Made Mars and Saturn for the Cause,[6]
The moon for Fundamental Laws,
The Ram, the Bull, the Croat, declare
Against the book of Common Prayer?
The Scorpion take the Protestation, 185
And Bear engage for Reformation?
Made all the royal stars recant,
Compound, and take the Covenant?[7]
Quoth Hudibras, The case is clear
The saints may employ a conjurer, 190
As thou hast prov'd it by their practice;
No argument like matter of fact is:
And we are best of all led to
Men's principles, by what they do.
- ↑ Lilly was employed to foretell victories on the side of the Parliament, and was well paid for his services.
- ↑ Lilly tells us himself how he predicted a victory for the king about June, 1645, which unluckily proved to be the time of his total defeat at Naseby. He says that during Cromwell's campaign in Scotland, in one of the battles, a soldier encouraged his comrades by reading the month's prediction of victories to them, out of "Anglicus."
- ↑ Lilly grounded lying predictions on that event. Grey says, his reputation was lost by his false prognostic of an eclipse that was to happen on the 29th of March 1652, commonly called Black Monday. But in 1656, the Royalists at Bruges were greatly inspirited by a prediction of the king's restoration in the following year, which he had communicated to one of Charles' secretaries.
- ↑ The direct contrary happened; for the king overthrew the Parliamentarians in Cornwall.
- ↑ The Parliament appointed a licenser of almanacks, and so prevented any from appearing which prophesied good for the Cause.
- ↑ Made the planets and constellations side with the Parliament.
- ↑ The author here evidently alludes to Charles, elector palatine of the Rhine, and to King Charles the Second, who both took the Covenant.
